A New Home: Who'll Follow

Life in the Clearings

by

First published in 1839

Chapter 51

The Schoolmaster's Dilemma

I have departed from all rule and precedent in these wandering sketches
of mine. I believe I set out, a great many pages ago, to tell of the interesting
changes, the progressive improvements in this model of a village of ours.
My intention, as far as I had any, was to convey to the patient reader
some general idea of our way of life in these remote and forgotten corners
of creation. But I think I have discovered that the bent of my genius
is altogether towards digression. Association leads me like a Will-o-the-wisp.
I can no more resist following a new train of thought, than a coquette
the encouraging of a new lover, at the expense of all the old ones, though
often equally conscious that the old are most valuable. This attempt to
write one long coherent letter about Montacute, has at least been useful
in convincing me that History is not my forte. I give up the attempt in
despair, and lower my ambition to the collection of scattered materials
for the use of the future compiler of Montacutian annals.

Yet is seems strange, even to my desultory self, how I could have passed
in silence the establishment of a weekly mail, that sweetener of our long
delicious winter evenings—that rich atonement for all that we lack
of fresh scandal and new news. Since this treasure was ours, I have learned
to pity most sincerely those who get their letters and papers at all sorts
of unexpected and irregular times; a shower of scattering fire, feeble
and ineffectual—a dropping in at all hours seasonable and unseasonable,
like some classes of visitors; coming often when one's mood is anything
but congenial; and sure to stay away when one longs for company—gay
ones intruding when we had determined to be blue and miserable, and sad
ones casting their long shadows on our few sunny hours.

But a weekly mail! a budget that one waits and gets ready for; a regularly-recurring
delight, an unfailing pleasure, (how few such have we!) hours, nay days,
of delicious anticipation—sure harvest of past care and toil, an
inundation of happiness! Let no one think he has exhausted all the sources
of enjoyment till he has lived in the back-woods and learned to expect
a weekly mail with its lap-full of letters and its tumultuous papers;
a feast enjoyed by anticipation for a whole week previous, and affording
ample materials for resumées for that which succeeds.

This pleasure has become so sacred in my eyes, that nothing vexes me
so intolerably as seeing our lanky mail-bags dangling over the bony sides
of Major Bean's lame Canadian, and bestridden and over-shadowed by the
portly form of the one-eyed Major himself, trotting or rather hobbling
down Main-street on some intermediate and unpremeditated day. Men of business
are so disagreeable and inconsiderate! To think of anybody's sending fourteen
interminable miles over bush and bog to B_____, up hill both ways, as
everyone knows, just to learn the price of flour or salt three days sooner,
and thereby spoiling the rest of the week, leaving an obv

jectless blank where was before a delicious chaos of hopes; substituting
dull certainty for the exquisite flutterings of that sort of doubt which
leaves us after all quite sure of a happy result. I have often thought
I would not open up the treasures which reached me in this unauthorized,
over-the-wall sort of way. I have declared that I would not have Saturday
morning spoiled and the next week made ten days long. But this proper
and becoming spirit has never proved quite strong enough to bear me through
so keen a trial of all feminine qualities. One must be more or less than
woman to endure the sight of unopened letters, longer than it takes to
find the scissors. I doubt whether Griselidis herself would not have blenched
at such a requisition, especially if she had been transplanted to the
wilderness, and left behind hosts of friends, as well as many other very
comfortable things.

Another subject of the last interest which I have as yet wholly neglected,
is the new school-house, a gigantic step in the march of improvement.
This, in truth, I should have mentioned long ago, if I could have found
anything to say about it. It has caused an infinity of feuds, made mortal
enemies of two brothers, and separated at least one pair of partners.
But the subject has been exhausted, worn to shreds in my hearing; and
whenever I have thought of searching for an end of the tangled clue, in
order to open its mazes for the benefit of all future school-committees
and their constituency, I have felt that every possible view of the case
has been appropriated, and therefore must be borrowed or stolen for the
occasion. I might indeed have given a description of the building as it
now smiles upon me from the opposite side of the public square.

But the reader may imagine St. Paul's, St. Peter's, the Parthenon, the
mosque of St. Sophia, or any edifice of that character, and then think
of the Montacute school-house as something inexpressibly different, and
he will have as good an idea of it as I could give him in half a page.
I think it resembles the Temple of the Winds more nearly than any other
ancient structure I have read of; at least, I have often thought so in
cold weather, when I have beguiled the hours of a long sermon by peeping
through the cracks at the drifting snow; but it is built of unplaned oak-boards,
and has no under-pinning; and the stove-pipe sticking out of one window,
looks rather modern; so the likeness might not strike everybody.

The school-ma'am, Miss Cleora Jenkins, I have elsewhere introduced to
the reader. From April till October, she sways "the rod of empire;" and
truly may it be said, "there through the summer day green boughs are waving,"
though I believe she picks the leaves off, as tending to defeat the ends
of justice. Even the noon-spell shines no holiday for the luckless subjects
of her domination, for she carries her bread and pickles rolled up in
her pocket-handkerchief, and lunches where she rules, reading the while
"The Children of the Abbey,"—which took her all summer,—and
making one of the large girls comb her hair by the hour.

During the snowy, blowy, wheezy, and freezy months, the chair has been
taken—not filled—by Mr. Cyrus Whicher—not Switcher,—a
dignitary who had "boarded round" til there was very little of him left.
I have been told, that he was of a portly and rather stolid exterior;
had good teeth and flowing locks; but he was, when I knew him, a mere
cuticle—a "skellinton," as Mr. Weller would say—shaped like
a starved grey-hound in the collapsed stage, his very eyes faded to the
color of the skim-milk which had doubtless constituted his richest potation,
since he obtained the empty honors of a district school.

When he came under my care, in the course of his unhappy gyrations, I
did my best to fatten him; and to do him justice, his efforts were not
lacking: but one cannot make much progress in one week, even in cramming
a turkey poult, and he went as ethereal as he came.

One additional reason for his "lean and hungry" looks I thought I discovered
in his gnawing curiosity of soul—I suppose it would be more polite
to say, his burning thirst for knowledge. When he first glided into my
one only parlor, I asked him to sit down, expecting to hear his bones
rattle as he did so. To my astonishment he noticed not my civility, but,
gazing on the wall as who should say—"look you, how pale he glares!"
he stood as one transfixed.

At length—"Whose profile is that?" he exclaimed, pointing to a
portrait of my dear, cheerful-looking grand-mamma—a half-length,
by Waldo.

I told him all about it, as I thought, but left room for a dozen questions
at least, as to her relationship—whether by father or mother's side—her
age when the picture was taken, &c., &c., &c.; and Mr. Whicher's concluding
remark, as he doubled up to sit down, was—

"Well! she's a dreadful sober-lookin' old critter, ain't she now!" But
ere he touched the chair, he opened again like a folded rule out of a
case of instruments, and stood erect save head and shoulders.

"Is that a pi-anner?" he asked with a sort of chuckle of delight. "Well!
I heard you had one, but I din't hardly believe it. And what's this thing?"
twirling the music-stool with all his might, and getting down on his poor
knees to look underneath both these curiosities.

"Jist play on it, will you?"

"Dinner is ready, Mr. Whicher: I will play afterwards."

He balanced for one moment between inanition and curiosity; then, "with
his head over his shoulder turn'd," he concluded to defer pleaure to business.
He finished his meal by the time others had fairly begun; and then, throwing
himself back in his chair, said, "I'm ready whenever you be."

I could not do less than make all possible speed, and Mr. Whicher sat
entranced until he was late for school: not so much listening to the tinkling
magic, as prying into the nature and construction of the instrument, which
he thought must have taken "a good bunch o' cypherin'."

That week's sojourn added a good deal to the schoolmaster's stores of
knowledge. He scraped a little of the crystallized green off my inkstand
to find out how it was put on; pulled up a corner of the parlor-carpet,
to see whether it was "wove like a bed-spread;" whether it was "over-shot
or under-shot;" and not content with ascertaining by personal inspection
the construction of every article which was new to him, he pumped dry
every member of the household, as to their past mode of life, future prospects,
opinion of the country, religious views, and thoughts on every imaginable
subject. I began to feel croupish before he left us, from having talked
myself quite out.

One of his habits struck me as rather peculiar. He never saw a letter
or a sealed paper of any kind that he did not deliberately try every possible
method, by peeping, squeezing, and poking, to get at its contents. I at
first set this down as something which denoted a more than usually mean
and dishonest curiosity; but after I had seen the same operation performed
in my presence without the least hesitation or apology, by a reverend
gentleman of high reputation, I concluded that the poor schoolmaster had
at least some excuse for his ill-breeding.

Mr. Whicher had his own troubles last winter. A scholar of very equivocal,
or rather unequivocal character, claimed admission to the school, and,
of all concerned, not one had courage or firmness to object to her reception.
She was the daughter of a fierce, quarrelsome man, who had already injured,
either by personal abuse, or by vexatious litigation, half the people
in the place; and though all detested her, and dreaded contamination for
their daughters, not a voice was raised—not a girl removed from
the school. This cowardly submission to open and public wrong seems hardly
credible; but I have observed it in many other instances, and it has,
in most cases, appeared to arise from a distrust in the protecting power
of the law, which has certainly been hitherto most imperfectly and irregularly
administered in Michigan. People suppress their just indignation at many
abuses, from a fear that they may "get into trouble;" i.e. be haled before
an ignorant justice of the peace, who will be quite as likely to favor
the wrong as the right, as interest or prejudice may chance to incline
him. Thus a bad man, if he have only the requisite boldness, may trample
on the feelings, and disturb the peace of a whole community.

When Hannah Parsons applied for admission to the district school, Mr.
Whicher made such objections as he dared in his timidity. He thought she
was too old—her mother said she was not nineteen, though she had
a son of two years and upwards. And she did not wish to study anything
but arithmetic and writing; so that there could be no objection as to
classes. And the wretched girl forced herself into the ranks of the young
and innocent, for what purpose or end I never could divine.

From this hour the unfortunate Whicher was her victim. She began by showing
him the most deferential attention, watching his looks, and asking his
aid in the most trivial matters; wanting her pen mended twenty times in
the course of one copy, and insisting upon the schoolmaster's showing
her again and again exactly how it should be held. She never went to school
without carrying a tribute of some sort, a custard, or an apple,—apples
are something with us,—or geranium leaf at least. Now these offerings
are so common among school-children, that the wretched master, though
writhing with disgust, knew not how to refuse them, and his life wore
away under the anguish inflicted by his tormentor.

At length it was whispered that Hannah Parsons would again bring to the
eye of day a living evidence of her shame; and the unfortunate schoolmaster
saw himself the victim of a conspiracy.

It needed but this to complete his distraction. He fled in imbecile despair;
and after the wonder had died away, and the scandal had settled on the
right head, we heard no word of the innocent pedagogue for a long time.
But after that came news, that Cyrus Whicher, in the wretchedness of his
poverty, had joined a gang of idlers and desperadoes, who had made a vow
against honest industry; and it is not now very long since we learned
that he had the honor of being hanged in Toronto as a "Patriot."